In recent times, consumers have demanded more in the form of deliverables from both conventional laundry and dry cleaning practices. Further, consumers and commercial service providers prefer that these benefits be delivered within one apparatus to minimize additional labor or effort. Examples of the desired deliverables include fabric treatment for durability, resilience, waterproofing, stainproofing, aesthetics, perfume application, improved cleaning, improved whitening, and wrinkle reduction/release.
Most of these deliverables require even or semi-even distribution of low fluid volumes onto the fabric surfaces due to cost or efficacy considerations. Perfume, for example, requires semi-even distribution. In other words, it is not desirable for a fabric article to be drenched in perfume while another fabric article receives one drop in one area. Waterproofing, on the other hand, requires even distribution. In other words, it is desirable that a fabric article or several fabric articles are almost entirely covered across their surface(s) such that the water resistance is not blotchy across the article.
Conventional aqueous-based laundering and dry cleaning apparatuses typically introduce an aqueous liquor or cleaning fluid, respectively, by way of one or more spouts positioned at or near the top of the chamber, above the area the fabric load normally resides while in the chamber. Spray devices are rarely utilized. The cleaning fluid, in the case of dry cleaning apparatuses, or aqueous liquor, in the case of conventional laundering apparatuses, flows out of at least one spout falling onto or near the fabric load. Most, if not all of the time, this cleaning bath continues to flow until the fabric load is immersed wherein every article within the fabric load is in a state far above its absorptive capacity.
Complete immersion is an effective way to deliver cleaning baths made up of adjunct ingredients and water or cleaning fluids; however, as alluded to above, many of the recently-demanded deliverables require distribution of low fluid volumes onto the fabric surface in order to be effective or economically feasible. As a result, complete immersion may not be an effective or cost conscious way to deliver many consumer noticeable benefits. Further, while application of low fluid volumes may be achieved with controlled flow devices, point saturation and uneven distribution across the fabric load are still problematic, particularly when some fabric articles lay directly before the controlled flow device blocking the path to other fabric articles.
Accordingly, the need remains for an economically feasible and/or effective way to apply treatment fluid onto the surfaces of the fabrics for the purpose of delivering consumer noticeable benefits without the negative effects of point saturation and uneven treatment fluid distribution.